Codesmasher Thesis Paper
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Codesmasher: Learning About A Cryptographer in a Game about Cryptography by Nicholas M. Parker And Xinxin Qian A Thesis Project Submitted to the Faculty of the WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science In Interactive Media and Game Development ______________________________________________________________________________ APPROVED: Dean O’Donnell, Thesis Advisor ___________________________________________________ Edward Gutierrez, Committee _____________________________________________________ CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 2 Abstract Codesmasher is an educational code breaking game that seeks to tell the story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, “America’s First Female Cryptanalyst''. Through a combination of stories presented from Elizebeth’s point of view, to solving encoded messages using various cipher techniques that Elizebeth herself used, the player learns about her career and her impact on the art of cryptography in the United States and gain a better appreciation for military code breakers. This paper discusses the process of how we researched Elizebeth’s story, created the game, playtested it and gathered data, analyzed the playtest data, and finally published the game on itch.io. CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 3 Acknowledgements Xinxin Qian: Thank you to everyone who has helped us on this paper: Dean and the other readers, my cat, computer and CSDN. Without your help, I may not have been able to graduate successfully during COVID and enjoy a hard but exciting time making a game. Nick Parker: I would like to give my sincere thanks to my family, specifically my parents and my sister, for being constant sources of support and always being available to offer any guidance that they could. I also want to give thanks to our advisor Dean O’Donnell for his help and insights throughout the entirety of this process. CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 4 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Table of Contents 4 Introduction 6 Research and Inspiration 6 Elizebeth Smith Friedman 6 Cypher PC Game 12 Cryptogram Mobile Game 15 The Guides/The Guides Axiom Mobile Game 17 Types of Ciphers 18 Experience Design 24 Target Audience 24 Experience Goals 25 Art Design 25 Art Direction 25 Fonts 29 User Interface 30 Audio Design 36 Technical Design 37 Bacon Cipher 37 Substitution Cipher 37 Assessment 38 Playtesting About the Story 38 Playtesting About the Code System 40 Bacon Cipher 41 Substitution Cipher 43 Post Mortem 44 CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 5 Future Work and Distribution 44 Enigma Cipher 44 More Interaction 44 George C. Marshall Research Library 44 Conclusion 45 Bibliography 47 CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 6 Introduction Codesmasher’s main experience goal is to provide an interesting and engaging way for players to learn about Elizebeth Smith Friedman by following in her footsteps. Instead of just reading about the cyphers she decrypted, players are asked to decode messages using the very methods she pioneered. We hope to show players a small piece of the amount of work and effort that is put into codebreaking, and show the impact the Elizebeth made during her career. Codesmasher is a menu based puzzle game made using Unity. It has been published on itch.io for the PC and the target audience will range from 18 and up. Codesmasher will be marketed towards individuals with an interest in history, cryptology, and cryptanalysis. Also as a disclaimer, it should be noted that the spelling of Elizebeth’s name is not a typo. It is in fact spelt with an E. Research and Inspiration Elizebeth Smith Friedman Elizebeth Smith Friedman’s cryptology career started in 1916. Then named Elizebeth Smith, she was an avid fan of William Shakespeare. During this time, she had decided to travel to Chicago’s Newberry Library to see a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio that was held there.1 During her stay, she had a conversation with a librarian about her interest and love for Shakespeare. The librarian told Elizebeth about a wealthy textile merchant named Colonel 1 Fagone, J. (2018). The woman who smashed codes: A true story of love, spies, and the unlikely heroine who outwitted America's enemies (pp. 11-12). New York City, New York: Dey St., an imprint of William Morrow. CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 7 George Fabyan who owned a private think-tank called Riverbank Laboratories, and was also interested in Shakespeare. The librarian then called Fabyan who soon arrived in his limousine and invited Elizebeth to stay the night at Riverbank.2 She agreed, and during her stay, he offered her a job to assist American educator Elizabeth Wells Gallup and her sister in investigating the Baconian theory of Shakespeare’s authorship. This theory perpetuates that the famous philosopher Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of Shakespeare’s play. The theory is based on the belief of correspondences between philosophical ideas of Bacon and the works of Shakespeare.3 More important to Elizebeths story, it was also believed that Bacon had left cryptographic ciphers and codes in the plays and poems that proved this theory. As such, Elizabeth’s work would involve decrypting these messages.4 She agreed, and her cryptology career began.5 Not long after, Riverbank began working on military cryptography as well. Until the Army Cipher Bureau was established following World War I, Riverbank was the only facility in the U.S. capable of solving enciphered messages. After World War 1 began, a number of U.S. Government departments asked Riverbank Labs for help and sent personnel there for training.6 In addition, among the staff of fifteen at Riverbank was the man that would become her husband in 1917, William F. Friedman,7 who would later go on to run the research division of the SIS in the 1930s and 50s, and assist in the breaking of Japan’s PURPLE cipher before America’s 2 Ibid, (15-16) 3 Ibid, (17-18) 4 Ibid, (33-34) 5 Ibid, (35) 6 Ibid, (66-69, 82-85) 7 Ibid, (49, 57-60) CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 8 entrance into World War II.8 Elizebeth and William worked together at Riverbank until 1921, where they both left Chicago to move to Washington D.C. where they began working for the War Department.9 While Elizebeth and William worked closely together, many of her contributions to cryptology were unique. During her time with the War Department, she and her team worked extensively on breaking ciphers used by anti-prohibitionists, smugglers and bootleggers.10 While ciphers used by these individuals were very basic at first, they began to increase in complexity as the operations began to grow and become for financial success.11 However, this increase in sophistication did not seem to pose a problem to Elizebeth, who mounted a number of successful attacks against substitution and transposition ciphers, both basic and complex. During this time, Elizebeth worked at a number of government departments including the War Department, and the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1923, she was hired as a cryptanalyst for the U.S. Navy, which later led to a position with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Prohibition and of Customs. In 1927, the department established a joint effort with the Coast Guard’s Intelligence Division to monitor international smuggling, drug-running, and criminal activity both in and out of the U.S. With the recent developments made in radio technology, these smugglers used encrypted radio messages to communicate, presuming they’d be able to communicate securely. However, Elizebeth and her unit were able to decrypt the messages. From 1927 to 1939, Elizebeth’s unit was of great importance during a very acting period of smuggling 8 Ibid, (149-150) 9 Ibid, (114-115) 10 Ibid, (133-136 11 Ibid, (136-138) CODESMASHER: LEARNING ABOUT A CRYPTOGRAPHER IN A GAME ABOUT CRYPTOGRAPHY 9 within the United States. Her unit was eventually folded into the Coast Guard itself, where Elizebeth solved the bulk of the intercepted ciphers collected in San Francisco and Florida herself.12 During this time she taught a number of departments on cryptology. Over the course of three years of working for the Coast Guard, the Bureau of Narcotics, the Bureau and Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Prohibition and Customs, and the Departments of Justice, she solved over 12,000 rum-runner messages and at least 24 different coding systems used by the smugglers.13 Her work during this time led to the conviction of the narcotics smuggling Ezra Brothers and the indictment of Al Capone.14 In 1931 she was among the group of people that convinced Congress to create a headquartered cryptanalytic section to meet the need for a more dedicated effort against ciphered communications. Through this she began teaching other analysts cryptanalytic fundamentals and deciphering techniques. During this time, she also testified in a number of cases against accused smugglers. In 1933, her efforts had led to the convictions of 35 bootlegging ringleaders.15 She also worked on the case of Velvalee Dickinson, known as the “Doll Woman”, a convicted Japanese spy who’s correspondence with Japan included naval vessel movements in Pearl Harbor. These materials were analyzed and solved by Elizebeth herself, which resulted in a guilty verdict against Dickinson16 12 Ibid, (139-141) 13 Kahn, David (1967). The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing. New York, NY: Macmillan Co. Inc. p. 806. 14 Haynes, Suyin (January 11, 2021). "How America's 'First Female Cryptanalyst' Cracked the Code of Nazi Spies in World War II—and Never Lived to See the Credit".